This invention relates to frozen food products, and more particularly to a frozen sauce delivery system for use with a frozen food product.
Packaged frozen food items that include multiple food components, along with seasoning or sauces, have been available on the market for some time. Attempts to make such frozen foods more convenient and user friendly have produced products that include most, if not all, food items for a complete meal. These items may include vegetables, pasta or rice, and meat, poultry or other protein item. Some products require or suggest the addition of freshly cooked meat or poultry, instead of including pre-cooked and frozen meat or poultry in the product. Other products recommend or suggest serving the prepared product with freshly made rice or other starchy food item.
Convenience of the product is enhanced by the provision of sauces or sauce ingredients requiring little work during preparation on the part of the consumer/cook. Such sauces may be formed from coatings on some or all of the frozen food items in the package. These coatings reconstitute into sauces when the food items are heated and prepared for consumption. Alternately, the sauce may be provided in a separate container within the food product package. This container is then opened and the sauce added to the other food items during heating and preparation. These sauces replace sauce ingredient packets that must be mixed with the liquid ingredients, such as oil, butter, or water, to form a suitable sauce.
A frozen food product of the prior art may be formed in part from a plurality of frozen food items, such as frozen vegetables, pastas, meats, poultry, rice, legumes or other food items. The frozen food product may contain all of the same food item, such as all of one type of vegetable. Alternatively, the frozen food product may contain a mixture of just vegetables but of different types, a mixture of vegetables with a starch, such as pasta or rice, or a general blend of vegetables, starches and meats or poultry. The frozen food product also typically includes some type of frozen sauce.
The frozen food product is designed to produce a finished food dish upon preparation, such as by cooking. The finished food dish is often a heated combination of the food items of the food product and the sauce that coats the food items. The frozen food product may be configured such that the finished food dish is combinable with other food items not included in the frozen food product. These items may include freshly cooked meats or poultry, previously cooked meats or poultry, or freshly cooked rice, pasta or other starch.
The types of sauces provided in the frozen food product may include savory sauces that may be primarily water based sauces with other ingredients, such as flavoring and thickening ingredients, cheese sauces, cream sauces, or tomato-based sauces. These sauces are typically formed from a plurality of different ingredients, including both liquids and solids. The liquids may include, for example, water, vinegar, soy sauce, or oil. The solids may include, for example, corn starch or other thickening agents, sugar, garlic, ginger, xanthan gum, pepper, and/or other herbs, spices or seasonings.
When combined together into a sauce, these types of sauce ingredients often result in a depressed melting point. That is, a particular combination of sauce ingredients will melt at a temperature well below the melting point of water, which may be below 0xc2x0 F., and often is below industry standard temperatures for refrigeration and freezing equipment. Based on industry standard temperatures for storage and transportation equipment, a preferred melting temperature for such a sauce is in the range of about 20xc2x0 F.xc2x110xc2x0 F. With the temperature variations that occur between product formation, shipping, warehouse storage, retail display and/or consumer home storage, such a frozen sauce may often exist in a semi-frozen state and thus must be packaged in a separate container in a frozen food product so as not to cause a mess inside the frozen food product package.
Attempts to simplify meal preparation for consumers by providing all of the ingredients in one frozen package have encountered various problems. One of these problems is the loss of sauce intensity due to manipulation of the sauce ingredients for improved handling and delivery, such as coating of the frozen food items. Another such problem is the increased mess and waste dueto the handling and emptying of containers of frozen or semi-frozen sauce. In addition, another problem is the loss of portion control due to the provision of a single sauce container for an entire package of food items
The present invention is an improved frozen sauce delivery system in which the sauce for a frozen food product is provided in the form of a plurality of frozen sauce chips. No coating of frozen food items within the frozen food product is required. Depending on the type of sauce being provided, the sauce may be formed into one or more different types of chips. Each type of chip is formed from a mixture that may include a portion of the ingredients used to form the sauce. Each mixture is then apportioned and frozen as chips. The melting temperature of the chip ingredients can be formulated to be higher than the melting temperature of the overall sauce. A plurality of each type of sauce chip can be included in a package along with frozen food items to create the frozen food product. This frozen food product may then be prepared, preferably using heat, to form a finished food dish that includes heated food items coated in the heated sauce.
The frozen sauce delivery system of the present invention can efficiently deliver sauce having enhanced flavor to the finished food dish due to the increased ability to provide relatively higher quantities of solids, such as seasonings, herbs and other flavorings, per volume of sauce. The multi-chip system is easy to use for a consumer, resulting in relatively low mess and waste. This system is also relatively easy to handle during production and packaging, resulting in low costs. An added benefit of portion control by the consumer/cook makes the present invention a user friendly and an economical frozen food product.